Last night, the Golden Globe Awards kicked off the major film awards season, with big wins for La La Land and Moonlight, and a rousing speech given by Meryl Streep, who won the Cecil B. DeMille Award. The Golden Globes also often reflect what is to be expected from the upcoming Academy Awards.

La La Land broke a record and picked up the most Golden Globes ever in one ceremony, taking seven awards, including Best Musical or Comedy Film, Best Screenplay and Best Director for Damien Chazelle, Best Song, and Best Score. The film’s stars, Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, also won the acting categories in their genre for their performances in the charming Hollywood musical. The Drama Performance category saw Casey Affleck win for his role in the Manchester by the Sea and Isabelle Huppert win for Elle.

Moonlight, which follows a young black man from childhood to adulthood as he discovers his sexuality, won Best Drama, a positive step forward for diversity after last year’s shocking lack of inclusivity across the major film awards, particularly the Oscars, where no non-white actors were even nominated. This year’s Golden Globes see Viola Davis win Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, and more non-white actors were nominated for awards, including Ruth Negga, Denzel Washington, Octavia Spencer, and Dev Patel among others. However, diversity is still miles away from where it should be in the film industry, with this repeatedly made blatant each awards season.

In the television categories in particular, Brit talent excelled, with Netflix’s series The Crown winning over Game of Thrones and Stranger Things, with its star Claire Foy taking an award for her role as the Queen. Hugh Laurie, Tom Hiddleston and Olivia Coleman also picked up awards for their performances in The Night Manager, which was the biggest winner across the television categories.

But perhaps most notably, while collecting her Cecil B. DeMille Award, which recognises outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment, Streep turned the focus on the president-elect Donald Trump, beginning by referencing his xenophobic and racist views, and instead celebrating that “Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners,” encouraging diversity, multiculturalism, and inclusivity.

The actress also called out Trump for mocking a disabled New York Times journalist in 2015, criticising his atrocious behaviour, of which there is no shortage of examples. “This instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kinda gives permission for other people to do the same thing,” she explained, “Disrespect invites disrespect, violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.”

Streep urged everyone to defend a free press so we can continue to call out Trump’s behaviour and hold him accountable for his words and actions, and she made a plea to support the Committee to Protect Journalists. Streep had campaigned for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, and her speech was met with enthusiastic applause. It’s brilliant to see another prominent figure unafraid to be political and to use their position of privilege and influence to highlight problems, speak out against inequality and discrimination, and to encourage change.